End of the World? I'm the Boss novel Chapter 2

What the hell?

Robin froze when she heard the voice.

For a couple of seconds, she simply stared in shock. Then her mind slowly cleared. Could this be the mysterious system ability people always talked about in novels?

For every 1,000 dollars she spent, she would gain about 10 square feet of storage space.

Robin decided to test it. She tapped the payment button.

First, she bought instant noodles. Beef stew, shrimp, chicken soup, and two other basic flavors. She ordered ten boxes of each. Each box came with 24 packs. After the online discount, the total came to just over 2,000 dollars.

As soon as the payment went through, Robin felt a strange drop in her awareness. The white mist in front of her faded away. A small storage space, about 20 square feet, appeared in her mind.

Above it was a progress bar. At the end of the bar sat a gray trophy icon labeled "Big Spender."

Below the progress bar was a huge wheel. A thin pointer floated in the center. The wheel was divided into many colored sections, but everything on it was blurry, and she couldn't see what the prizes were. Even so, Robin felt certain. This had to be the lottery panel.

She casually grabbed the cup on the coffee table and placed it inside the storage space. What happened next surprised her. The moment the cup entered the space, the steam rising from the hot water froze in place, as if someone had pressed pause. The steam no longer moved upward.

Time inside the storage space was completely still.

That meant anything placed inside would never spoil.

"It really is a system! A real storage space!"

Robin was overjoyed. Spend money? That part was easy.

Making money was hard. But spending it? Anyone could do that.

Especially once the apocalypse began. When that happened, money would turn into nothing but useless paper. In an emergency, even a pack of instant noodles would be far more valuable.

167 hours. That was almost seven days. She had to complete the "Big Spender" achievement within those seven days.

Now that she had stocked up on basic instant noodles, shouldn't she also buy some premium instant foods?

Pork ramen, hot & spicy ramen, chili ramen, teriyaki ramen, roast chicken ramen, and others.

Stockpile!

She started with ten boxes of each flavor.

Just these instant foods alone added up to over a thousand boxes. Among them, she excitedly ordered 1,000 bowls of premium instant noodles from a well-known brand.

Those were practically the luxury version of instant noodles. Normally, two bowls cost around 55 dollars. Robin had only eaten them twice before, but she had loved them ever since. Still, they were expensive, so she rarely bought them again.

But now? There was no way she'd skip them.

When she finished, she had spent over 100,000 dollars. The storage space in her mind had expanded to more than 1,000 square feet, yet the Big Spender progress bar had barely reached three percent.

"So the system really wants me to spend money," Robin muttered with a small laugh.

In her previous life, she had suffered for ten long years after the apocalypse began. This time, her goal wasn't just to survive.

She wanted to live well.

After thinking for a moment, she went to another shop on Amazon and ordered 1,000 pounds of boneless chicken wings from several different stores. That was her absolute favorite.

For some reason, the wings bought online always tasted better than the ones sold in regular stores. 1,000 pounds came to about 20,000 dollars.

Just then, she heard a soft "oink, oink" from the bedroom. The door slowly pushed open. A round, pink pig nearly three feet long waddled out, snorting as she walked toward Robin.

"Ruby..."

Robin froze when she saw the pig. A moment later, her eyes quickly turned red.

The pig's full name was Princess Ruby. Eric Neel, that playful old man who loved surprising people with unusual gifts, had given her to Robin.

Many people didn't realize that pigs ranked among the top ten smartest animals in the world. In fact, they were smarter than most dogs, except maybe border collies. Their emotions were stable as well.

If you kept things clean and managed the hygiene properly, a pig could actually make a very good pet.

In her previous life, Noah and Zelda had come running to Robin for shelter. But while she was asleep, the two of them secretly slaughtered Ruby.

Robin woke up when the smell of cooked meat drifted through the house.

When she demanded an explanation, Noah looked even angrier than she was. "Robin, do you even understand what the priority is here?" he snapped. "At a time like this, what matters more—people or animals?

Zelda's words were forced back down her throat. She blinked in confusion. For some reason, Robin seemed a little strange today.

Robin spoke into the phone again, her voice steady. "I need to sell quickly, so my lowest price is two million. You know the value of that apartment. Downtown, three bedrooms. Even at 2.5 million, someone would buy it."

Zelda gasped in shock, completely forgetting why she had come. "What?! Robin, you're selling this apartment?!"

Noah's expression changed as well. "Wait, Robin, what are you thinking? The location is great, transportation is convenient, and you're selling it for only two million?"

Robin finally lowered the phone from her ear. "What's the problem?"

The two of them exchanged glances, both looking pained. "This is a big decision," one of them said. "And you didn't even talk it over with us first?"

Robin raised an eyebrow. "My apartment. Even if I gave it away for free, that's my choice. Why would I need to discuss it with you?"

"Well... "

That question completely stopped them. They had long been used to interfering in Robin's life. Now that they actually had to explain why, neither of them could come up with an answer.

Right. Why?

Noah opened his mouth and said with a righteous tone, "We are your best friends. For something this important, shouldn't we talk about it?"

"Oh—"

Robin dragged out the word. After giving the agent a quick explanation, she hung up the phone.

Then she looked at the two of them with a faint, mocking smile.

Best friends?

In her previous life, she had truly believed that.

But what had they done to her?

They talked about friendship in front of her but treated her like a complete fool behind her back.

How could Jim have broken into her apartment without anyone noticing in her previous life without their help?